CCP: “No shortage of commitment” to making World of Darkness “awesome”

CCP CEO Hilmar Pétursson and David Reid, incumbent chief of marketing operations, have reassuringly said that despite recent shake-ups within the firm, it is still committed to making the MMO World of Darkness, and the duo promised it will be “much more accessible than the EVE universe” for those who are not into science fiction.

Speaking with Ten Ton Hammer, Pétursson said the developer’s vision for World of Darkness is to take the experience CCP holds, and combine it with “all the history and refinement” of Vampire: The Masquerade in the last two decades and turn it into something “the world has never seen before.”

“People [need to] understand that it’s not so much that CCP is shipping a new game this year, it’s more that CCP is dramatically expanding the EVE universe this year, and we think of World of Darkness as that second universe,” added Reid.

“Taking the tech, the human intelligence, methodology, and experience that we’ve got, and building that second universe with a very different flavor of moment-to-moment gameplay [makes] World of Darkness less of a new platform and more of a new universe.”

“When they see what we’re able to do with that new universe and that intellectual property… well, it’s a really big opportunity. There is no shortage of commitment here to making World of Darkness awesome.”

Pétursson said the sixty-person team working on the MMO is making “fantastic progress,” and Reid added that the team is making sure it is a “trans formative” experience for players.

“Despite what you hear from us about DUST and EVE, there are more people working on World of Darkness here at CCP than there are working on triple A titles at other companies I’ve worked at for the stage of development it’s at,” he said. “Everyone here realizes what a tremendous opportunity we have.

“To do what’s been done here with EVE – the economy, the persistence, the Machiavellian politics that players do to construct their own content – imagine what that can be like in a modern era intellectual property, in something everyone understands. We don’t all know how to pilot a spaceship, but we all know how to kill a vampire. And that’s the case even if we haven’t played Vampire: The Masquerade.”

World of Darkness has been development since 2008 and doesn’t have a release window, currently, but is expected sometime this year “at the earliest.”